We love games here… we have a long list of favorites. Last week we played a new one that was sent to us called Mystery Light – Secrets of the Sea from Playroom Entertainment, who makes great educational toys.

This particular game was a hit with my 9 year old and my 5 year old. It is soooo very clever IMO and a lot of fun to play. If you have kids that are intrigued by deep sea exploration, boating, or maybe even pirates.. then this will be well received. The game is played “underwater” as you descend to find treasure.

At the top of the game board you have buoys with colored flags. You roll the dice and pick one number from the two dice and using the that number you descend down underneath the buoy you chose and select the tile that represents the number you chose. If you rolled 2 x’s then you have no air and must remain above water and miss a turn. Anyway you light the tiles you land on with UV decoder Mystery Light to illuminate treasures (gold bars, shells, barrels of gold), caves that could have treasure or trouble, seaweed, and sea monsters. You can choose to take the tile(s) and return to the surface or keep going down hoping to reach the large treasures at the bottom of the board and hope you can reach them before you lose a battle with sea monsters or run out of air.

Initially it was a bit hard to keep it all straight… what the various tiles were and how the rules worked exactly but once you play a few turns it is fun and engaging. My kids liked to imagine they were submerging in a sub and shining the light on treasures they passed. The fact that you can’t see the treasures until you shine the UV light on them is very clever and fun. I also liked that it teaches the concept of risk. Go deep for the bigger rewards or play it safe on the surface to get smaller rewards… each has its benefits and drawbacks. Also since you can accumulate the tiles and save them to get the larger reward cards that are at the top of the game, it teaches savings calculations and planning too.

All in all I think the game helps with numbers, analyzing risk versus reward, calculating, strategy, and planning. It would be a good game for homeschoolers since it helps kids to learn various concepts and yet it is fun enough for any child, or parent, or grandparent (since we played with my mom). It gets a thumbs up from us!

Much thanks to ebeanstalk.com for sending it to us!